International Online Training Program On Intractable
Conflict

NGO Peacebuilding

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are doing even more peacebuilding activities than
are official governmental agencies. They have a long-term presence in many of the areas of
the world which are afflicted with intractable conflicts and are in an excellent position
to engage in a wide variety of peacebuilding activities. In addition to providing
humanitarian aid and mediation, they also are well positioned to engage in empowerment and
capacity-building among the local population and to get the population involved with the
adversary in a variety of joint activities. As is true with official governmental
peacebuilding efforts, the goal of NGO efforts is usually conflict reduction and/or
resolution, not just between official actors, but among ordinary citizens.

Many peacebuilding efforts, especially those carried out by the peace churches, such as
the Mennonite Conciliation Commission, try to foster reconciliation through apology and
forgiveness. Other organizations work for mutual understanding and prejudice reduction by
developing joint projects and confidence-building activities involving adversaries.
Projects and strategies vary as much as the people involved, but almost all encourage
increased contact and cooperation between people on all sides of the conflict. Examples of
NGO peacebuilding are listed below.

This article examines military and humanitarian interventions in communal conflicts.
Sahnoun compares official peacebuilding with NGO efforts, observing that NGOs can often be
more successful at peacebuilding because they are more flexible in the kinds of activities
they can undertake.

Saunders views peacemaking as including four activities: official governmental
negotiations, quasi-official negotiations such as track two diplomacy, public dialogue,
and civil society efforts. NGOs tend to be active in all of the last three, which,
Saunders argues are as essential to peacemaking as official diplomacy.

This article discusses four roles that NGOS play in the peacemaking process:
humanitarian relief, monitoring of human rights abuses, providing early warning of
potentially violent conflicts, and conflict resolution. While NGOs can be effective in all
four of these areas, Aall warns that each of the four activities must be kept separate to
be effective.